Andy McNab - Last Night-Another Soldier…

'So, Emma, you mean you might not even know you've got it until you're out the army and maybe even married with kids?'

'Exactly. And we need to remember that guys hit by PTSD are casualties of war, just like John. It's a normal reaction to an abnormal experience. There's even an American general with it.'

'Nah, you're joking.' I kept on looking down at the ground as she pressed on the wound.

'No joke. You heard of the Falklands war? It was years ago, early eighties?'

'Yeah, I have. I know a lot about it.'

'Bet you didn't know that since that war more guys have committed suicide as a result of PTSD than the 255 guys that were killed in action?

'It's just a small percentage of people who develop PTSD. But if any of those symptoms start happening to you, you must get help.' Emma was looking at me like she expected me to be the very next sufferer.

'I'm not a jellyhead, I'm all right!' I twisted round to look at her.

'I know, but it's my job to make sure you lot know.' She stood up and walked back over to her desk to put down her medical stuff. 'Right, you're done. You can get dressed. Seven days light duties and antibiotics.'

That wasn't what I wanted to hear. We might get sent back out and I'd be stuck in camp. I started to argue with Emma. 'But…'

'Don't care.' She pointed at me to shut up.

'Seven days light duties and I want you back here tonight after you've showered. Go easy – I want to check those sutures are still in place.'

By the tone of her voice, I could tell arguing with her wasn't going to get me anywhere, so I changed tack. 'You just want to see my arse again…'

'Your arse looks like a rancid badger's right now,' she giggled. 'Believe me, nobody's going to want to see it.'

I laughed back as I opened the tent flap to leave. Then the thought of walking back into the cookhouse stopped me. 'You're not going to tell anyone, are you?' I asked.

Emma looked me straight in the eye. 'I took the Hippocratic oath.'

I had no idea what that was but it sounded serious, which was good enough for me.

As I walked over to the cookhouse, the familiar sound of generators humming and vehicles revving filled my ears. The Tannoy kicked off again, 'Standby. Standby. Firing. End of message.' Sure enough, another 70km Sniper kicked off and whooshed over my head. I couldn't be bothered to look up and watch it disappear into the sky without my sunglasses on. Besides, the most important thing on my mind just then was getting a brew.

Whenever we got any time off from being on patrol or on fatigues, it was always brew time. No doubt about it, the army would grind to a halt without tea. Even our ration packs had enough brew kit in them to supply all the Queen's garden parties put together.

The cookhouse was the centre of our world. As well as having a brew on 24/7, we also got fed there, but more importantly it was where the telly was. BFBS, the British Forces Broadcasting Service, beamed in the soaps, news, music channels and, even better, football. There were always lads sitting in the cookhouse day or night. Just hanging around, chatting, watching telly, or reading all the three-week-old newspapers and magazines lying about.

The FOB was just a big square fort really, a bit like the US Cavalry outposts in the westerns I used to watch on Sunday afternoons. Only, instead of wood, they were made of Hescos. Hescos are massive, drum-shaped sandbags with a wire frame and they stood as tall as me. The engineers filled them with sand and stacked them up to make the FOB's perimeter walls, then they made buildings with them for protection against IDFs (indirect fire, rocket or mortar attacks). We didn't actually sleep in the Hesco buildings. We slept in tents surrounding them. We'd be too hot otherwise.

There was no air-conditioning and barely any plugs either. We used Solar Power Monkeys to keep our iPods and laptops charged up. It wasn't like there was a shortage of sun, if you know what I mean. I hadn't seen a single cloud since I'd been here. We were in the middle of the desert with nothing around us for miles. It was all generators, water wells and powdered milk. But you know what? It was great, I loved it. I even got thirty minutes of free phone calls home every week.

I pushed through the tent flap and into the cookhouse. Big mistake. About twenty lads all stopped chatting, farting and watching the telly, ready to take the piss out of me. There was a general chorus of 'Wey hey!' Then all the funnies started.

'It's the man with two arseholes!' shouted Si with a big fat grin on his face.

'Not good, mate,' jeered Flash as he looked up from his magazine. 'Women ain't going to be impressed with that war wound.'

'Guinness Book of Records for you, mate,' shouted Jonesy without even looking away from the television. He was a lad from another platoon and he was a bit strange. No one understood his so-called joke, but then again we never understood what he was on about.

I felt the colour rise in my face as the piss-take continued. 'Nah, don't! Leave it out.'

Toki banged his chipped Best Dad in the World mug down on the bench and grinned up at me. 'Too late, mate. She was straight on the radio.'

Si, with half a jam sandwich stuck in his hand, plonked himself down on the bench beside Toki. 'Mate, s'pose you're going to be using twice as much bog paper now.' He obviously thought it was funny as he burst into a fit of hysterics.

I sat down opposite them both and resigned myself to hours of ritual torment. 'Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got any more?'

'Woah! Quiet, everyone.' Flash leapt over to the TV and turned the sound up. A blonde news presenter in a pink dress was going on about a famous singer being admitted to hospital for a suspected drug overdose. Apparently she had threatened to take legal action against some nightclub owner because his nightclub staff had let her get so drunk that she couldn't control her habit.

The news presenter than moved onto her second item of the day: 'Last night, another soldier was killed in southern Afghanistan. The latest British casualty died from wounds sustained during a clash with the Taliban…' After this very brief mention, the presenter went on to a story about their news team finding a talking dog in Southampton.

Si was not impressed. He strode up to the TV set, still munching on his sandwich, and turned the sound down. Spit and breadcrumbs fired out of his mouth as he shouted at the TV screen. 'That it? John's in bits and that's all he's worth? Shoved between a slapper and a dog? Don't they get what's going on out here!'

Flash looked unsurprised by the report or Si's outburst. 'Course not, mate. Come on, calm down and finish your sandwich.'

Si wasn't interested in finishing anything other than his rant. 'What do they think's happening? Patting kids on the head and giving out sweets? That all he's worth? Ten poxy seconds?'

Toki remained as calm as ever. 'What government would want people to know what's going on out here anyway?'

Si was about to respond with another furious outburst when Flash butted in. 'They want them to see the sweets and the smiling Afghans. They don't want them to see us burying a lad's foot when we find it two days after his body has been sent back home. Not good PR, mate. I can understand that.'

Toki nodded at Flash. 'That's right. You've just got to get used to it, lads. Same as Basra. No one understands because they don't really know.'

'They don't want them to know,' added Flash as he pulled Si back to the table in front of his mug and the second half of his sandwich.

They both had a point. 'Yeah, MacKenzie got that about right this morning.' It was beginning to feel like MacKenzie was on the Star Ship Enterprise or something, because suddenly he materialized behind me.